Last week, 7th – 11th October, was National Customer Service Week. We used the opportunity to make some of our directors apprentices for the day, to get out with front-line staff and to visit tenants.
Gary Duckmanton, Assistant Director of Property Maintenance & Compliance, became Nigel’s apprentice for an afternoon and shared his experiences of the day.
Gary's day:
First up was a visit to a customer’s property to fix a front door which wasn’t locking properly. Nigel showed Gary what he needed to do to repair the lock, and then kept a close eye on Gary as he made the repair. It was fixed and good as new again in a few minutes, so obviously he’s a quick learner (or Nigel is an excellent teacher!)
The customer mentioned she had another repair booked in for another day for a defective window lock, and as the door hadn’t taken long Gary and Nigel decided to fix this while they were there. This again only took a few minutes, and it meant the customer wouldn’t have to wait at home another day for the repair and freed up a slot for another customer to be booked in. She was extremely pleased with the work that had been done.
Then they went on to a block of flats that needed a new fire safety sign. The adhesive needed to stick up the sign could get messy, and so on Nigel’s instructions, Gary just observed this repair. It was useful that Gary was on site though for this job, as he contacted a member of his team to confirm this block of flats did need this fire safety sign and confirmed where it needed to be fixed.
Gary then spent an hour at Blackberry Lane Community Centre with Dan Bush, the housing officer for the area. Here he arranged for a tenant’s kitchen cupboard doors to be repaired and visited a tenant who had concerns regarding the safety and security of her rear fence. When he returned to the office, he followed these issues up and made appointments for completion of the required repairs
Following his day being an apprentice, Gary said “it was a very worthwhile day and was good to get out with front line staff and to visit our tenants. I am now planning on spending a day out of the office each month. I would recommend all of our managers find the time to go out on site, to see how it is out there and spend time with our dedicated front-line staff and meeting tenants… it is an essential part of understanding service delivery and how we can assist in shaping it for the better”
For National Customer Service Week, we also used the opportunity to share some of the wonderful compliments the team at NPH have received for providing excellent customer service to our customers. You can view these on our Twitter feed by following us on Twitter or by viewing the feed on the NPH website homepage.